Golkar man to be asked on Permadi

Golkar man to be asked on Permadi

JAKARTA (JP): Police will be questioning a senior official of
the ruling Golkar party who publicly accused soothsayer Permadi
Satrio Wiwoho of blasphemy.

Police Chief Gen. Banurusman Astrosemitro said yesterday that
Din Syamsuddin will be questioned in connection with the illicit
mass production and sale of Permadi's controversial audio tapes
in Central Java.

The tapes contain Permadi's comments, from a closed seminar at
the Gajah Mada University, in which he allegedly described
Prophet Muhammad as a dictator.

Syamsuddin, who heads Golkar's research and development
section and did not attend the seminar, insists that the remark
was blasphemous and that the psychic account for it before the
court.

Banurusman said police are yet to determine when Syamsuddin
will be summoned for questioning.

"He will be questioned in connection with the illicit mass
production and sale of the cassettes," he told journalists.

Permadi is also in trouble for the remarks he made in the
seminar and in an interview last year with Radio Unisi, of
Yogyakarta. In the seminar, he allegedly likened Golkar with the
outlawed Indonesian Communist Party, while in the talk show he
predicted political calamity will occur this year.

Golkar chief Harmoko has planned to sue him for the comment.
Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher will also file a
lawsuit against him for accusing his ministry of embezzling
enormous amounts of money from the yearly haj pilgrims it
organizes.

Numerous Moslem groups under Golkar have taken to the streets
to condemn Permadi for his allegedly blasphemous remarks and
demanded that he be brought before the court.

Chairman of the Moslem-oriented United Development Party,
Ismail Hasan Metareum, likens Permadi to Salman Rushdie, a
British author who wrote the book Satanic Verses, which Moslems
consider blasphemous.

But not all local Moslem leaders condemn Permadi. Abdurrahman
Wahid, chairman of the 30 million member Nahdlatul Ulama, for
example, says there was nothing blasphemous in the paranormal's
remarks.

Forum Demokrasi, which Gus Dur, as he is popularly known,
leads made a statement yesterday that the Permadi affair shows
how the people in power turn public sentiment into "political
energy."

The statement, signed by the chairman of the forum's working
group, Bondan Gunawan, said that the government has used the
public resentment as part of its crackdown on elements critical
of its policies. (bsr/pan)